


Nothing (That We Didn't Already Know)

by kittykatthetacodemon



Series: Luck of the Draw [5]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Emotional Constipation, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Idiots in Love, M/M, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:33:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9604163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittykatthetacodemon/pseuds/kittykatthetacodemon
Summary: It was damn cold out in the wilds of Montana, and neither of them had really considered how ill-suited they were for northern winters.  They’d be making Chisolm pay for this particular trip for a long time to come.Or, a one-shot set post-Trust Falls where Vasquez is cold and Faraday is a little out of his depth.  This isn't going to make much sense without reading the rest of the series, I would assume.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *throws this out in front of you and runs away*
> 
> ART BY [RageBear](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RageBear/pseuds/RageBear)

It was damn cold out in the wilds of Montana.

Faraday wasn’t even sure why they’d made the trek north.  Chisolm had said something about a criminal, something about the odds, and so they’d gone.  Neither of them had really considered how ill-suited they were for northern winters.

Well, they were considering it now.  Montana was in deep-freeze, cold enough to make the sap in the trees explode with harsh pops and cracks as startling as gunfire.  Metal tried to stick to bare skin; it was hard to touch even their own guns without feeling that bone-deep bite of the cold.  Faraday was freezing, and hungry, and tired, and the criminal they’d come after was no real threat—Chisolm had been wrong, for once.  The man was nothing more than a spooked deer darting away through the forests, someone to be caught rather than killed.  Vasquez didn’t seem any more pleased with the situation than he was, and Faraday figured they’d be making Chisolm pay for this particular trip for a long time to come.

They didn’t think too hard about it when they reached a wide clearing, covered in snow.  Chasing after a man through the cover of the trees could be difficult, and the sudden expanse of flat space seemed a miracle when it opened in front of them.  Vasquez, already ahead, took it that way, bolting forward into a sprint.  “ _Ándale_!  This is it!” he called back over his shoulder, thrilled and projecting it outward, the end of the hunt finally in sight.

Under Faraday’s boots, something creaked.  Their target, almost back at the tree line on the far side, suddenly turned and raised his hands.

_Aw, shit_ , Faraday thought, understanding dawning far too late to do anything about it.

Faraday was only a little ways from the edge of the pond, but Vasquez was about as far from either shore as he could get.  Under Faraday, the water had frozen down deep, and then covered itself in snow; under Vasquez, the ice turned out to be just an inch or so thick.

And so Faraday’s footing crackled, but steadied.  Vasquez dropped straight through to the freezing water below.

The target turned and ran.  Faraday forgot him entirely, because he was a stupid kid and not some kind of criminal mastermind, because it didn’t matter anyway, because Vasquez _hadn’t come back up to the surface_.

He darted forward as quickly as he dared, dropping to a crouch when the ice creaked quietly underneath him.  “Hold, damn it all,” he told it grimly, clenching his teeth, half a threat and half a plea, and it held.  There was a spluttering sound, Vasquez briefly surfacing and gasping for air, and Faraday was slammed with a wave of something uncomfortably close to panic as he struggled before sliding back under.

Faraday yanked off his gloves and his huge, bulky jacket, threw them to the side, and skidded forward on his elbows and knees and until he reached the jagged edge of the ice, gone thin and translucent with the strain as it hit water and air all at once.  Vasquez was still close, hooked under the lip of the ice and unable to pull free.  He was already going sluggish, a combination of cold and lack of air and fear projected so strong and sharp that Faraday could practically taste it, and Faraday didn’t waste any time in plunging his arms into the water up to the shoulders to reach for him.

It was _too damn cold_ , he realized with a gasp, arms gone immediately and painfully numb.  He hooked them around Vasquez’s shoulder anyway, the one part of him within easy reach, and yanked at him to try and draw him back toward the air.  Vasquez fought him, that panic-hurt slicing through him, and Faraday thought back safe-relax- _safe_ as hard as he could until Vasquez went limp and let him help.

Getting him to the surface was easy.  Dragging him back up to solid ground, when the man was soaking wet and something like twenty pounds heavier than usual—now that was something more of a challenge, especially since the ice underneath them kept threatening to give way no matter how much he cursed at it.  But he managed eventually, and at last they were both back on somewhat stable ground.

Vasquez, thank everything and anything, coughed up a lungful of water and breathed on his own.

“Hey, hey,” Faraday said, crouched at his side and shivering, arms and hands gone stiff and numb.  “You with me?”

Vasquez mumbled something vaguely affirmative.  He was shaking so hard his whole body practically convulsed, and unlike Faraday he was soaked head to toe, inside and out.  “That was horrible,” he croaked out at last.

“Yeah.  Yeah, I bet.  Come on,” Faraday said, teeth chattering.  He climbed to his feet and grabbed his coat, which had gone cold but was still decently dry, stared at it for a second, and then shoved it at Vasquez instead.  Vasquez looked like he might argue for a second, but the look Faraday shot him cut that off as surely as whatever feeling Vasquez had to be picking up from him.  Vasquez took the coat.  Faraday reluctantly chose to keep his gloves for himself, drying his hands off as best he could before shoving his numb fingers inside, figuring he needed at least a little warmth to keep them both going. “Up we go, darlin’.  Let’s get you someplace warm and dry.”

“No such thing,” Vasquez mumbled, but he let Faraday reach down and drag him to his feet.

Faraday huffed out a laugh.  “You’re a real riot,” he said.

Between the two of them, they swapped out Vasquez’s soaking wet coat for Faraday’s dry one.  Vasquez didn’t look great, grey-faced and trembling, but at this point there was really nothing that they could do about it.  At least they could both move.  Well, it was more of an uncoordinated shuffle than anything, but it was movement.  His own arms, wet from fingertip to shoulder, were starting to burn, and he couldn’t imagine how much worse it felt to be in Vasquez’s shoes.

He thought on the two miles or so they’d have to hike back to shelter, and winced.  “The faster we go, the warmer we’ll be,” he decided, more to himself than anything, and ducked under Vasquez’s arm to help drag him along.

* * *

It was funny, really, how long a measly couple of miles could stretch. 

Vasquez stopped answering before they got even halfway back.  For a little while, Faraday could just about wave that off, since it was hard for anyone to talk while shivering like a leaf in a hurricane.  Faraday would know, since he was barely managing it himself.  But then Vasquez’s gift went _strange_ , wavering like it was coming from underwater and a long ways off, and it was harder to convince himself things were still going to be just fine.  Vasquez kept walking, kept moving forward, but his mind had gone somewhere far away, and no amount of shouting or pleading or jostling brought him back into focus.

It’d been a long time since Faraday hadn’t had that quiet mental presence in the back of his head.  Feeling it slip away was—well.  He wanted to break things, wanted to scream and rage, except that wouldn’t do any good.  He wished suddenly, violently, that he had a gift that could be _useful_ for once in his damn life, but as it was, just about the only thing he could think do with it was light his cards on fire for just a couple more seconds of warmth. 

That was a little insane, actually, so maybe his head wasn’t all there either.

So they kept walking, because they had to, because there was nothing else to do unless Faraday intended to let them lie down in the snow and freeze to death.

* * *

It felt like it took years, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour before they got where they were going, both of them stumbling like drunks but still, miraculously, upright.  His ice-numb hand had long since locked into the fabric of his coat where it was wrapped around Vasquez’s shoulders, and he was pretty sure that was the only reason neither of them had fallen over yet.  “There it is,” Faraday said, trying not to bite off his own tongue as he shivered.  Their little cabin, dry and safe and stocked up for winter, was finally coming into sight.  “Just a little more.  Come on, keep walking.  We can do this.  Almost there.”  He’d been saying something similar for ages, all pointless noise as he kept dragging them both forward.

Vasquez groaned, which was honestly more of a response than Faraday had been expecting, his head lolling loose on his neck until it pressed against Faraday’s shoulder.  But his feet kept struggling forward, all the way up to the cabin, all the way to the door, all the way to that first step through the opening.  The second their boots hit the boards, though, Vasquez’s knees gave out, like he was just waiting for it.  Faraday, stupid-slow, barely caught him before he hit the ground.

Vasquez was snow-cold and twice as pale, but when Faraday dropped down and put an ear to his chest, he was still breathing.

“Okay,” Faraday said, suddenly realizing that even though he might be cold and wet and tired, Vasquez was something much worse, and there was no one else to help.  If he didn’t figure this out, no one would.  “Okay.  It’s on me.  Okay.”

He got himself together and let the door slam shut and latch behind him.  Already, the air inside was a good ten degrees warmer than outside, but still nothing like _warm_.  Vasquez stayed a still, dead weight in his arms as he dragged the man farther into the room, settling him on the soft rug by the unlit stove.  It took a few shaky minutes to stack the wood, and a few shaky seconds to get it lit, but eventually flames were licking up in the metal stove belly.

The moment the fire was steady he dropped back down to Vasquez’s side and checked again, just to make sure.  His breaths were slow and shallow, but still going.  This close to the fire, Faraday was starting to feel the uncomfortable crawling of pins and needles building in his limbs, feeling kicking back to life even as his shivering got more violent.

But Vasquez was as still as the grave and twice as quiet.  That was probably not good.

“Now what?” Faraday muttered, dragging a hand across his face.  He felt like he was thinking his way through mud, slow and stupid.  “Clothes.  Have to—dry off.  Have to get dry clothes.”

Vasquez was first, his wet things sticking to his skin and almost stiff with frost.  He didn’t so much as twitch as Faraday stripped him to his skin, throwing his soaked clothes into a pile in the corner with a wet slap before stumbling over to the bed and dragging over the dry pile of blankets and bedclothes.  He dried them both off, stripping off his own wet things and throwing them to join Vasquez’s when it became obvious just how much water he himself was carrying.  He quickly wrestled them both into dry clothes, dragged Vasquez onto a thick folded blanket, and then rolled the rest of the blankets around and on top of Vasquez, hoping to give him a little warmth.

It was like moving a doll, eerie and unresponsive.  Faraday brushed the damp hair off his forehead and ducked down to press a kiss against his temple.  “You’ll be fine,” he whispered, more to himself than anything, making himself believe it.  He wasn’t sure if the shiver he felt down the line of his spine was his gift, pulling at the weight of luck and superstition and bending it in his favor, or if it was just the cold.

There was nothing more he could do about it either way.  The heat was starting to build, and the more time Faraday spent next to the stove the more he could feel it taking effect, every numb inch of him crawling back to life.  When he felt like he could stand again, he staggered over to their stash of supplies and dug out the coffee.  Going through the motions of making the stuff felt painfully hard, slow as torture, and every few minutes Faraday was struck with the fear that Vasquez had up and died on him.  When it got too much, Faraday gave in, dropped back down to the floor, and made sure Vasquez was still with him.

He was.

But he also wasn’t getting any warmer, Faraday realized.  His skin was a good deal colder than Faraday’s own, and still felt clammy to the touch; Faraday was shaking as the cold slowly left him, but Vasquez wasn’t, and that suddenly seemed bad.  Shouldn’t he be shivering, too?

The coffee was only lukewarm, but even that felt scalding against the skin of his palms.  He dropped back to the floor one last time with the cup clutched between his hands, and tried to get his twice-cursed brain to think.

Well, _he_ was warm, wasn’t he?  Or _warmer_ , anyway, and with the coffee in his belly he almost felt like something a little more human.  It seemed as good an idea as any to crawl in under the blankets too and curl himself around Vasquez like a human hot water bottle.  Every inch of skin he could touch was ice cold, but he still grabbed Vasquez’s hands and tucked them under his own arms, shuddering against the touch but refusing to pull away.  He slung a leg over Vasquez’s hip, tucked icy feet between his calves, and then reached up to tip Vasquez’s face into the crook of his neck.  One hand he left tangled up in Vasquez’s hair, and the other he started dragging in mindless circles across the man’s back.  Every one of Vasquez’s slow, dragging breaths puffed against his skin.

“Come on, V,” he murmured after a couple long minutes.  “Come on, sweetheart.  You’re scaring me.”

Time stretched and dragged.  He was almost getting used to the way the cold and the fatigue warped his thoughts.

When Vasquez finally shifted, his heart leapt in his chest and he jolted out of the half-awake stupor he’d been floating in.  “Hey, there,” he said, keeping his voice low and soft, projecting calm as much as he was able.  Just because he was better off, it didn’t mean he wasn’t nearing the end of his rope as well.  Blind panic wasn’t the way to keep an empath comfortable, though.  “Wake up for me.  That’s it.”

Vasquez mumbled some kind of nonsense, and shifted again.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Faraday said again, pleased, stroking a hand over the back of Vasquez’s hair.  “Come on, come on back.”

Vasquez shifted with a bit more purpose, and then did it again, until he was clawing weakly at the blankets surrounding them, pushing back against Faraday himself.  “Too hot,” he said, bleary but distinct.  He didn’t even bother to open his eyes.  “It burns.”

“V, stop, you’re ice cold,” Faraday told him gently, holding him steady.  It was depressingly easy, even as exhausted as Faraday was, since the man was weak as a kitten.  His mind-touch fizzed softly against Faraday’s thoughts, confused and hurt enough to about break his heart.  “It’s not hot.  You need the blankets.”

“Burns,” Vasquez said again, but quieter.  He stopped fighting back, at least.  “Don’t.  Please.”

Faraday bit his tongue hard.  “I know, sweetheart,” he said, dipped his head to press a kiss against Vasquez’s hair, and then another, apology and affection all wrapped up in one.  “I know.”

* * *

It wasn’t much longer before the shivering started.

The shivering—well.  It was a violent shift from near-stillness to terrifying motion, and Faraday was pressed right up against Vasquez while it happened, close enough that it rattled through them both, close enough that it was like holding onto an earthquake.  But it was good, he thought, with what little desperate sense he was clinging to.  It was good that Vasquez was shaking like he was about to burst apart; it was good that he was alternating between dragging Faraday close and pushing him away, mumbling complaints of too much heat and too much cold and only sometimes recognizing Faraday at all.  It was good that he drank some water and lukewarm coffee when Faraday gave it to him, even if Faraday had to be the one to prop him up, to hold the cup steady. 

It was even good that Faraday could feel what he was feeling, or bits and pieces of it, as Vasquez’s mind-touch stumbled in and out of his head.  Out of nowhere, Faraday would be too small for his own skin, hollowed out and hurting, and he had just enough sense to recognize the line between Vasquez’s feelings and his own.  Faraday hadn’t felt near as bad as this, on his part, and he had less than no idea what he should be doing, but this was—good, it had to be.  Anything was better than that deathlike stillness from before.  This was good.

And after a while, it was.

The shivering slowed, steadied, stopped.  Vasquez’s clammy-cold skin warmed, until it matched and shared heat with Faraday’s, until their little nest of blankets actually kept the heat in rather than just blocking some of the cold out.  Their hair, which had been damp with slushy ice and melted frost, dried.  This time, when Vasquez went still, it felt more like dropping off to sleep than it felt like death.

He was so exhausted he could cry, but he couldn’t sleep.  Not yet.  Not until Vasquez was back with him, because there was something aching and tight in his chest that wouldn’t relax until he knew for sure.

More time passed.  Faraday no longer had the energy to spare to guess at what time it might be—it was still dark outside, so it was probably still night.  The whole world was narrowing in, or at least it felt that way.  The snowy, open wilds of Montana became the snug walls of the cabin became the soft warmth of the blankets—and then even that collapsed in, until it was just him and the solid weight of Vasquez at his side, in his arms, tucked so close that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.  Aching and sore as he still felt down to his bones, Faraday had to admit neither of them was in danger of dying of the cold anymore, but couldn’t quite rationalize it enough to let himself nod off.

The hand he had been rubbing up and down Vasquez’s back for the last forever had slowed, but never quite stopped, until it was just the faintest slip of a movement every couple seconds.  A pause, a breath, and then his fingers would tighten into a loose grip on the back of Vasquez’s shirt, fingertips long since gone strange and over-sensitive where they had dragged back and forth across the fabric.  Another breath, another pause, and he let his hand go slack, slowly relaxing it flat before taking another breath and doing it all over again.

Slow and methodical.  Catch and release.  Just enough movement, enough thought, to keep him from falling over the edge and into sleep.

Vasquez stirred, just a little, that steady mental presence unfurling in the back of Faraday’s head like it’d never left.  There was a faint sense of confusion, not quite fear, still barely aware at all.  Faraday shushed him.  “S’okay,” he mumbled, prying his eyes open just a crack to peer down at him.  “Just me.”  _Safe_ , he thought, made sure to feel it so Vasquez would too.  _Safe_.

Vasquez relaxed all over.  His head tipped away from its spot, tucked against the line of Faraday’s throat, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, his eyes opened and met Faraday’s.  He blinked once, twice.  “Oh,” he said, and then his eyes drifted shut again, his face pressing back into the crook of Faraday’s neck.  “Where?”

“The cabin,” Faraday told him, sliding his hand up to cradle the back of Vasquez’s head, as gentle a touch as he could make it.  “Remember what happened?”

“Think so,” Vasquez said.  “We chased.  I fell through the ice.”

Faraday winced.  Vasquez, pressed up close as he was, had to feel it.

“He got away.”  When Vasquez frowned, Faraday could feel it tugging downward against his throat.

“Yeah,” Faraday admitted on a yawn, fingers twitching in as much of a hand-waving gesture as he could manage at the moment.  “I had more important things to do.  Besides, he’ll turn up sooner or later.  They always do.”

“More important things?” Vasquez said—and then a beat later, softer, “oh.”  It was almost inaudible, just a buzz of sound that Faraday felt as much as heard, as understanding hit him.  From the second Vasquez had hit the water, Faraday hadn’t bothered considering any other course.  “Oh, _mi amor_.”  The touch of his mind went warm and easy, liquid-soft, and the way his gift pressed up against Faraday’s thoughts was as warm and welcome as an extra blanket.  Faraday was well-acquainted with the feeling in it, rolling over them both in a slow, steady wave.

He’d never asked what that word meant, what that feeling was.  He didn’t have to.

“Yeah, yeah,” Faraday managed, not bothering to keep his eyes from drifting shut again.  He thought it was maybe, finally, alright to sleep, and his tongue was getting almost too heavy to move.  “Love you, too.”

Surprise and pleasure flickered over from Vasquez, faint and sleep-blurred but unmistakable, and it took Faraday a minute to realize what he’d said and decide it was pointless to be embarrassed by it.  There was nobody else to hear it, and besides, it was nothing that they didn’t already know.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” he muttered, and still couldn’t quite keep himself from shifting a little so he could press a quick kiss against Vasquez’s temple.

Vasquez was smiling at him.  He could feel it, both in the uptick in his lips where they pressed against Faraday’s skin and in the smug warmth in his mind-touch.  If they went to sleep like that, wrapped around each other and clinging, then there was nobody around to see that, either.

And there was certainly nobody around to see whether or not Faraday was smiling, too.

* * *

He was pretty sure he could feel Vasquez’s gift all night, mind-touch pressed up so close they were practically dreaming the same dreams.

* * *

A series of heavy, rattling knocks jolted them both awake.  Faraday was upright, guns in hand, before he realized he’d even moved.  Vasquez, still a little slower than Faraday liked, didn’t protest when Faraday pressed down on his shoulder to keep him in place, just took the gun Faraday offered him and kept it trained on the door as Faraday edged closer to it, something like nerves jangling up and down his spine.

“Hey,” someone called from outside, banging heavily on the door once more.  “Hey, I can see the smoke; I know you’re in there!  Let me in!  Please, I’m freezing to death out here!”

There was more pounding, loud enough to wake the dead.  Faraday glanced back at Vasquez, waiting for him to nod his approval, and then yanked open the door.

He stared.  Vasquez, presumably, stared.  The man on the other side of the door—their escaped quarry, their gifted ice-breaker—stared, looking a lot colder and a lot less smug than he had when Faraday had last seen him, fleeing into the forest.

“Huh,” Faraday said.  "I'll admit, when I said they all turn up sooner or later, this wasn't exactly what I meant."  He caught the idiot by the scruff of the neck when he tried to run, and the static shock in his fingertips wasn't entirely unexpected.  His gift was acting up, which meant this was probably, in some way, his fault.  Damn.

"Really?" Vasquez said, and the bastard was absolutely laughing at him.  Faraday could feel some strange sense of humor with the situation bubbling up in his chest, and it certainly wasn't his own.  "Knowing you, it's exactly what I expected."

That was fair, to be perfectly honest, but instead of admitting it, he scowled and dragged their new captive inside.  The man came without all that much protest, honestly, not that Faraday could blame him.  It was much, much warmer inside.

"I really hate you some days," Faraday grumbled at Vasquez.

Vasquez just grinned at him, bright and pleased and smug.   _No you don’t,_ he didn't say, but then again, he didn't have to.

**Author's Note:**

> So this took way longer to get out than I wanted it to, and it's still an unedited hot mess, even though it's been sitting around on my laptop for ages, but some...things happened that made me delay. My heart just wasn't in it. I really want to take a second to request (with all the kindness and lack of anger in my soul for the incident that kicked this off) that anyone who wants to use any part of my original ideas from this series for their own work - whether that's writing something in this universe or just using some of my original ideas in their own fics - please, PLEASE give me credit and ASK ME FIRST. At this point, I am going to say yes 99% of the time, unless you're asking to write something that I still plan to write myself in-universe. But that yes only happens if you ask first, and only if you give me due credit. If you don't do either of these things, that will make me very sad.
> 
> What sad writers do: strongly consider taking down all their writing, leaving society, and running away to live in a cave, even though they know it's silly and melodramatic. Maybe they'll write fic in said cave, but they'll share it only with the stalagmites. Stalagmites have never once taken anyone's ideas, and also are very good listeners, or so I am told.
> 
> What sad writers do not do: write/post new things.
> 
> I have been sad lately. Please help me not be sad in the future.


End file.
